Saturday, 24 January 2015

Radical Identity and Non-Duality

Societies necessarily need to establish shared ways of viewing and
conceptualising the world and of establishing the shared subjective
landscapes of individuals: a role that has historically been undertaken
most commonly by religion, more recently perhaps by capitalism,
materialism and the cult of the self. The same problem tends to emerge
from this shared human compulsion to establish familiar routes of
becoming. Modes of perception and being become frozen or normalised and
identities form around them into pre-given destinies, lines along which
individuals and groups are expected to travel. An alternative way of
conceiving of the world is potentially overtly relativistic and denies
any form of truth or the possibility of hierarchy. This is what Tom Pepper
would criticise as the failing of post-modernity. As individuals in the
West, we are to some degree left to choose: to bind our experience of
self to a belief system and ideology that we are attracted to, such as
Buddhism, or drift wherever the ideological currents of the dominant
society lead. In either case, the collective nature of self is often
ignored or under-appreciated.

Non-duality and problems in affirming our existence

When talking about non-duality these days, there are two primary
schools of thought that tend to dominate discussion: Buddhism and
Advaita. If we look at figures such as Nagarjuna, the originator of the Madhyamaka School
of Indian philosophy, non-duality is presented along the lines of
reductionism ad infinitum and the deconstruction of the self to its
empty conclusion. Hokai Sobol once explained that the Yogacara school
of Indian philosophy describes the experience of non-duality or
emptiness in the affirmative: an experience that is intimately bound
with compassion and the awareness of our co-arising existence or
entrapment. Paul Williams states much the same in his textbook on the
doctrinal foundations of Mahayana Buddhism whilst observing how early
scripture of the Yogacara emerge specifically in the context of first
person meditation practice, rather than philosophical argumentation. It
seems inevitable that once we work out what we are not, we are left to
ask ourselves what remains, and consider how our view of what remains
determines to a great deal how we build community and establish values,
and in the Buddhist context, how meditative and ethical practices are
constructed. What a person remains as once
non-duality has been meaningfully confronted and the false
identification with an atomistic self has been discarded requires
pragmatic formulation. Not wanting to remain within a reflection on this
topic from a strictly Buddhist perspective, and with a desire to open
up the discussion so that it isn’t imprisoned in Buddhist discourse and
therefore impoverished, I am motivated by the need to build descriptions
of the individual and shared subjective experience of living
non-duality as a matter of fact. I think the logic of no-self is
sufficient to be a matter of fact and that it does not need to remain a
Buddhist or spiritual idea. If we take it as a given that the individual
self is not self-existing, or a separate entity to be found somewhere,
then the question naturally emerges: what are we? It is inevitable that
we need find some sense of who or what we are; we are questioning,
self-reflective beings after all and in our shared existence, we need
shared ideas of who and what we are that can potentially reduce
ignorance, suffering and the continued pursuit of growth at the expense
of natural capital.
One route to take is to suggest that we are multiple selves, although
the same issue of actual existence remains: where are they and how do I
recognise them, and who would be recognising them in the first place?
It will likely always be impossible to define what we are in a single,
absolute and truthful sense. In which case, we are left to
approximations, convenient metaphors, or, importantly, semi or partial
descriptions, some of which have pragmatic applications, some of which
are accessible, others less so. In this sense, we may accept that many
semi and partial descriptions capture important aspects of the network
of interwoven elements that an individual is comprised of and that it
may be most helpful to define a person, in the multiple, as a network of
layers and strands of being and becoming. The idea of a person as a
network points to interdependence, which is possibly the most useful
conceptual tool for coming up with working definitions provided by
Buddhism.

The Network of selves In order to deal with the fact
that we experience ourselves incorrectly as discrete selves, we need to
replace the conceptual framework we use for locating ourselves with an
alternative meaning making system, one that is less weighed down by the
lineage of a biblical God and its disparagement of our earth bound
condition. If we are not separate individuals that exist apart from the
world, we are necessarily embedded, interwoven elements of a
continuously fluctuating environment, characterised by constant movement
and change. If we are willing to fully dismiss the ascension/dissension
myths that have dominated our world view in the West, then we can
unravel the knots of dualism that distort our co-existence and sustain
boundaries that delineate our social constructs. We must find the
conceptual means and basis for engaging with the world and for being
active participants in a fluctuating and emerging, pulsing landscape of
interbeing. The English anthropologist Tim Ingold refers to this
inter-connectedness as a meshwork. His work explores ideas that offer a
conceptual basis for conceiving of interdependence in quite radical
terms. You can found out more about his work here.

A further progression in viewing ourselves more accurately involves
the pressing need to drop our speciocentric view of the world minus the
romanticism that haunts the re-discovering of animal life. Our
speciocentric sense of entitlement sits at the core of our irresponsible
behaviour towards the other non-human beings that co-exist with us
here. Any description of our species that moves away from subject-object
duality and the reification of the self can only be good for the
survival of the network of beings that co-habit this planet. It is not
romanticised to see ourselves as utterly dependent on the material Earth
in which we are embedded, or to return the right to co-exist to the
other species, whether animal, tree or rock. The abstraction of
ourselves as beings apart from these networks of forms has also
falsified our notion of what we are into beings that are always apart,
suspended in artificial detachment from our surroundings. This stretch
towards an artificial separation from the world around us runs deeper
than people seem to realise and we are impregnated by a form of
species-arrogance that verges on the schizophrenic. We do need to be
wary though of fragmenting ourselves further by attempting to construct
merely abstract relations with the environments we are embedded in
through anthropomorphism.

A further issue in the construction of a conceptual framework for
identifying humans as co-emergent beings concerns utopian thinking. An
important critique that is sometimes made of non-dualism, especially in
its Advaita expressions, is that it can lead to a sort of bland utopian
imagining in which we are all one. Such a conclusion can be found to be
rife in new-age circles and other expressions of spiritual narcissism
but it also pops up in Buddhism. It can serve as the basis for a
reaction against the dominant persona one is expected to adopt, and a
general desire to feel-good. Spiritual folk can easily end thinking that
as I am certainly not this and as I am definitely not that, well, then I
must be everything and everything must be me! This typically ends up
being part of an escapist strategy designed to annul the rough edges of
our finite material existence. It tends to lead to a rather superficial,
narcissistic disengagement from the complexities of life and what Zizek
might define as ultimate surrender to the atomisation desired by
Capitalism in which the individual self becomes the locus of all
creation and a subject of worship.

Further enmeshment

Returning to the notion of multiple selves, it may be interesting to
think of the locus of consciousness as a space of being, consisting of a
multiplicity of impregnating forces, visible and invisible, each run
through with space as their unifying quality. We are after all
impregnated from birth by cultural, historical, linguistic, political,
social, ecological, geographical, psychological, organic forces,
movements, tides and spheres of influence. We are inextricably birthed
into masses of enmeshed networks of being and becoming, both organic and
manmade. In growing and become more self- and socially- aware, we gain
further understandings, we light up further strands of these networks,
which in turn reveal further strands and dimensions of inter-being. Our
relationship with these networks is one of impregnating through
consciously or unconsciously feeding and being fed, stabilised and
destabilised by these strands. To deny the existence of these complex
intermeshing networks is to lock ourselves into blind ideological
allegiance to a simplification of our human lot. When we consciously do
this, we are basically giving up our part in providing for the
possibility of further evolution and the refinement and stabilisation of
meaningful patterns that reduce suffering and ignorance in the world.

From this shared view of being, our intimate lives are also shared
and not as unique as we might like to think. Emotions are like octaves
that we resonate with: which is not to say they are permanent,
self-existing frequencies, but rather are part of the make up of our
psycho-emotional being. They are shared octaves of our collective
‘being-scape’. How else can we explain for the utter unoriginality and
shared nature of feeling and emoting? At the least, we can refer to them
as shared resources for our evolutionary drive. They are not limited to
humans, however, as animals too experience joy, sadness, depression,
love, pleasure and so on. For us as humans, within the plains of
enmeshment, emotions and feelings are plains of opening or closing that
we move along, shy away from, indulge in and either force away or
doggedly extend and go after, or get seriously stuck in. We move in and
out of these plains of emergence and we agree unwittingly the degree and
length of the plains that we as cultures and groups will travel along,
where the taboos lie, and too often the social significance of these
frequencies of feeling. When enacted as culturally restricted plains of
feeling, emotions compound restrictive identities and strengthen the
atomistic self.

Outside of socially sanctioned feeling, what is the role of feeling
and emoting? Within the non-dual sphere there is often talk of an
underlying basis of compassion, love, and benevolence. Again it is
difficult to argue for some ultimate plain of existence without falling
into illusions of permanence and duality, but perhaps the underlying
basis of benevolence that even Madhyamaka philosophy points to is,
rather than a solid end goal, simply the release of the self as a
distinct, atomistic nucleus into spheres of co-emergent being, where
emotions and feelings exist as plains of further opening and knowing.
Within those open spheres of inter-being, ever more expressions of being
are shared and it becomes impossible to mentally separate from the
subjective experience of enmeshment.

The paradoxical nature of existence, at least in our current limited
capacities to perceive and conceptualise, demands that we are at minimum
two, if not multiple. We are always bound by our physical existence and
the physical plains within which we roam. Remember, we are not just
impregnated, but are impregnating the streams and lines of being. We
have agency and however limited we are integral elements of the lines
along which we emerge, move, flow and stagnate or flourish. We can
choose to work with only those lines of which we are conscious in order
to enact directed change in the world. The decision then becomes one of
choosing which lines to strengthen, weaken, tie together, separate, push
towards, cross, uncross, reveal, dismiss and so on. Unconscious feeding
of lines and avoidance of other lines is what allows systems of
injustice to remain, ignorance and suffering to continue in their
current manmade forms.

This view of inter-being I think has the potential to loosen many of
the myths that are still flowing around and within circles of knowledge
seekers, whether Buddhist or otherwise. The search for the authentic
self, the true self, the negation of the self (or that problematic word
‘ego’) all emerge from a dualistic division between here and there, good
and bad, subjects and objects. Unlike the popular myth which deems that
all we need do is be here now, this recognition of the dynamic,
movement-bound, relational, shared basis for our existence in an
intermeshed world of interbeing demands that we recognise that there is
no fixed point called now. There are plains, octaves, frequencies and
lines of movement which we are moved through and along which we move as
spaces of semi-conscious being and becoming. The richer the network of
lines that are consciously part of our network of awakened being, the
fuller is our ability to participate and enact change in the world. To
choose a line of nowness is merely to find comfort within the network of
lines one have so far become conscious of and reify their sum total
into a specialness. I for one cannot help but see this as a cop out. It
may be sufficient for some, the best they can afford. What’s not helpful
though is to indulge the idea that there is an end to all this and that
that is it.

The world is in need of more enlightened views of the individual and
society as transcultural phenomena. We more than ever need further
discussion of the ontology of being as religious identities are
experiencing something of a resurgence and globalisation is challenging
long-held national identities, seemingly leading to both a crisis of
identity in nations and the risk of the fabrication of models of self
that favour the return to domination by the political and economic elite
and entrenched class divide.

To finish, two questions naturally follow. How do we make it easier
for people to rid themselves of the subject-object dualism that lies at
the basis of western thought? Especially considering the intense fear at
the heart of our being of unbound spaciousness or unfamiliar degrees of
infinity. It turns out we are simultaneously terrified of being without
boundaries and in awe of a return to formlessness! Secondly, what is an
individual’s responsibility to this world as they become more fully
conscious of our enmeshed nature? Is it enough to re-enact the
particular lines currently available in existing spiritual traditions? I
would hope the response to the last question is increasingly negative.

At the least, we would do well to remember what Zizek had to say when speaking on Buddhism:

“…it is necessary to exit the “inner peace” of one’s subjective authenticity.”

End notes

Obviously, not all of the ideas herein are made up by yours truly.
Having a background in Animism and Shamanism, I have gained a lot from
reading works by deep ecologists, a number of anthropologists,
specifically Tim Ingold, and philosophers involved with object and
process philosophy, most recently Adrian Ivakhiv’s Immanence blog. The
no-self teachings that come from Buddhism happen to pop up in these
works and currently there is increasing dialogue across academic fields
that is innovative and relevant to discussion of post-atomistic-self,
experiential living. Some of the language in this and subsequent posts
comes from these sources.

For further information on some of those who helped me formulate
better my own opening to the world and networked thinking, follow the
links below.

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About Me

I'm a Life Coach, Core Shamanic Counsellor and meditation teacher to boot. I also teach English in Trieste, Italy. I follow a non-traditional expression of Buddhism and also run occasional events over the border from Trieste in Slovenia on Shamanism. Email me if you're curious about any of these activities.

Benvenuti (welcome)

This blog started out as an experiment. It continues to be such to this day. The opinions you will find in these pages are my own, and like all material on this Earth, are subject to change due to that hidden factor of impermanence.

This blog started out as an experiment. Writing is an art and one which I am only now starting to develop any capacity in. All of my writing constitutes a learning process in the presentation of ideas, opinions and experience. I am no expert, but I am doing my best to develop and learn from each piece I publish.

This blog started out as an experiment. I've no idea where it will end up. I explore Buddhist and Shamanic themes in this blog. Both areas which interest a fairly small percentage of Western society. Therefore this blog is quite specialist. It goes one step further by not representing any particular tradition in either of these spiritual arenas, although I have grounding in two shamanic worlds; one a path, the other an approach to counselling. My experience of Buddhism is primarily within the Tibetan and Theravada traditions.